


Forget, Reset, Try it Again

by Culumacilinte



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Ianto Jones: Serial Killer, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-08
Updated: 2009-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:53:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something amazing about death, and it takes Ianto’s breath away to be the cause of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget, Reset, Try it Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a speculative post-'Adam' AU, where Adam was never discovered, and the memories he altered never fixed. As a result, Ianto... well, the poor boy's gone and become a serial killer.
> 
> Warnings for violence, disturbing imagery, and sexual assault.

It’s not raining on this night, just dark. It’s nearly midnight, and the air is full of nocturnal city sounds; the solitary, clicking footfalls of people walking to or from the pub, subdued chatter and the hiss of tyres against the pavement. It’s warm; Ianto’s in shirtsleeves and work shoes, and he’s found his girl for the night.

Young and pretty, the way he likes them, with ginger hair that falls in waves around her shoulders, low cut shirt and not too much makeup. Quite beautiful, in fact. His fingers itch when he looks at her, and he has to swallow down the urge to act now, go, kill, do it. Not yet. He’s calculated in his method, always; long ago, he put away the guilt that wells inside him when he goes out to do this. There’s no point in feeling guilty now, before he’s even done anything. It’ll only fuck things up, and he refuses to suffer the remorse without getting the rush first.

He watches her for oh, twenty minutes, maybe, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep himself from clenching and unclenching his fists. Those pretty pink lips gone blue, bruises ringed around her white throat- the images are bright and alive in his mind, and he has to turn away at one point to calm himself down.

She only catches sight of him once, her eyes flickering over him and snagging on his. He gives her a small, easily innocuous smile, which she returns before she crosses the street at a trot to catch the light, even though there’s no traffic. Down the road, turn a corner, and he smirks when he realises where she’s going. They always do, the stupid, beautiful women, walking alone at night where they shouldn’t. The backstreets of the Docks are hardly a place for someone like her; it’s no wonder she’s going to get into trouble.

He’s never particularly _liked_ sneaking, Ianto, but he’s damned good at it, and so it is that when the girl steps carelessly into an alley, pretty gold shirt reflecting the light from the streetlamp behind her, he’s there, leaning against the wall. She starts a little on the spot, one hand flying to her throat as she exhales a startled little breath.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ Recognising him from their brief, shared glance across the street earlier, apparently. She takes it as a sort of familiarity, as complete strangers often do, and gives him a little smile as if to share in on the joke. ‘Christ, you nearly scared me to death,’ she laughs, and Ianto gives her a look of supreme, twisted irony before lunging at her.

No mucking about with words; he is ruthlessly efficient, and in a moment, he’s got her pinned up against a wall with a hand to her throat. He can feel her larynx under his fingers, so fragile, her eyes wide and terrified, and god, he’s already getting hard.

‘What’re you-’

‘ _Shut up_ ,’ he growls, and presses himself up against her. Her body is hot, squirming and yielding beneath his, and compulsively, the hand around her throat tightens. The way the windpipe _crushes_ under his fingers, oh, it’s exquisite, and her eyes go wide as she shoves at him, anger clear in her face. Soon, though, the rage turns into something much more like terror, and she’s babbling, protests and pleading that soon turn to crying, tears and snot streaking her face, all that perfectly done beauty melting away under his touch.

‘Don’t, just don’t- don't, please! Please, I’ll do anything, _anything_ , I promise, God, _ah_ -’ Cruelly, he cuts her off with one hand wrapped across the bottom half of her face, silencing her. He doesn’t need the words. He can still hear her whimpering and moaning, though, as she scrabbles at his hands with sharp fingernails, unintelligible words against his palm, and that’s good, that’s very good.

The hand around her throat inexorably tightening, his hips grind against her stomach as she struggles frantically, his own lips mouthing the air soundlessly but for occasional, low rumbles of pleasure. The arousal he gets from this is wrong, it’s filthy and wrong but there’s no denying it. Not now in the heat of the moment, with the girl’s pulse beating so thready and frantic under his fingers. Ianto hears a sickening snap as the hyoid bone gives under his fingers, and he groans just as she starts sobbing again, the sounds sawn-off and made horrible by lack of oxygen.

It doesn’t take long for that young, soft body of hers to go limp, but she’s not dead yet, just unconscious, and he lets the two of them slide to the ground as he finishes off the job. The final few twitches of the body are lovely, nerve impulses travelling from a dying brain, and he palms himself through his trousers, huffing out a sigh of breath as he counts each beat of the heart, slower... and slower... and slower... and then nothing. Oh _yes_.

There’s something amazing about death, and it takes Ianto’s breath away to be the cause of it.

The shock doesn’t come until later. He’s learned how to put it off, how to shut down that part of his brain until after he’s disposed of the body and got himself home. Now, despite the warm spring air, his gait is hunched over, hurried and stiff, almost as if he’s running from something, and when he reaches his flat and finally slams the door shut behind him, pressing himself up against it, he goes completely still. Still for a long, long moment before the tears come.  Like a blow to the solar plexus, and he gasps when they do, a hot, painful knot in his gut.

They’re inevitable, and he shakes with them, sliding down against the door to crumple to the floor, clutching his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth like a little lost child. It’s like this every time. Every single, fucking time.  And he always forgets how much it hurts. He... _killed_ a girl. With his own hands, throttled the life out of her and he couldn’t get enough of it, and oh _God_. He’d laughed at her, rubbed himself off on her as she died, and he is _not_ that kind of a man.

Except he is. And he knows he is. He always has been.

He feels like he might be sick.

No, coffee. That's what he needs, he needs a coffee, and he'll- well, he'll start there.

His fingers tremble as he sets up the press, tears still streaking silently down his cheeks and every breath catching in his throat. Put it away, put it out of mind, forget about it. He knows he can, he’s done it before, but he never seems to remember quite how difficult it is.

The smell of the coffee quickly permeates his flat, and he draws in deep, quavering breaths, pretending that it’s anything like comforting. While it brews, he tears off his clothes and gets into an old t-shirt and boxers. He’ll wash them later; he won’t be able to wear them, he knows, until they get cleaned. It’s very Lady Macbeth; he might even have laughed about it if it wasn’t him.

Fingers and toes tap impatiently, waiting for the coffee to brew, and once it’s finished, he burns his tongue on his first cup, he tries to drink it so quickly. By the second, he’s calmed himself somewhat, settled back into the routine (and God, it’s sickening that it’s become routine at all), and when he goes to the far cabinet to fetch out a little orange bottle of tiny white pills, his hands barely shake at all.

He doesn’t usually need retcon after he kills, usually he can compartmentalise enough that it isn’t necessary, but tonight he’ll allow it. The retcon makes it easier, even if he knows he can’t rely on them too frequently.

One pill with his second cup of coffee, and then he puts himself to bed.  Sleep comes quickly and blessedly.

The next morning, he’s up on time and into work as always, immaculate and impeccably-suited as ever, and perfectly, perfectly himself. He _feels_ perfectly himself.

‘Ianto!’ Jack calls, loping down the stairs, and pulls Ianto into a brief, firm kiss.

‘Sir,’ he answers with a little grin.

Jack winks at him. ‘Coffee magic, Ianto, there’s my boy. We’ve got a long day ahead of us!’ The last is shouted for the rest of the team to hear, and there are good-natured (and not so good-natured) groans from around the Hub as Ianto heads off to the kitchen.

He smiles to himself as he goes. Today is feeling like a good day.


End file.
